KARACHI, Aug 23: Cotton market on Tuesday showed a firm trend as ginners held on to their unsold positions awaiting still better prices for freshly ginned lint. Stray lots did change hands as some of the local mills remained active buyers at the prevailing rates around and below Rs2,300 per maund.

The market sentiment was also influenced on the positive side followed by reports that world cotton production may lag far behind the consumption in most of the countries because of higher demand from textiles, ginners said.

But spinners and mills being in pretty comfortable stock position are not worried over the developing situation on the world cotton front and think prices of made-ups could show corresponding increase, they said.

Even spinners and mills are a little worried over the reports of pest attack in some of the major cotton growing areas and talk of below target production figure of cotton during the current season.

Reports that the textile sector has fully covered its forward positions against forward sales of finished products allowed it to sit pretty comfortable on their inventories, market sources said.

“The local lint price outlook will be essentially determined by the supply and demand factors and could not be precisely predicted about the rise or fall in prices,” they added.

The new crop is now in the flowering stage in the major cotton areas and needs an extra care to the avoid risk of pest attack at this stage, ginners said.

Meanwhile, the market remained stable around the previous levels as ginners are not that aggressive sellers and sell only those lots which fell in their parity levels.

Ready off-take was modest totalling about 2,000 bales as ginners were not active sellers but most of the deals were done well above the official spot rates.